


Creating Unity By Being Petty

by TheNerdyTurtle96



Series: Claire's Christmas Oneshots [1]
Category: Hermitcraft RPF
Genre: Christmas, Enemies to Conspirators, Gen, NO Swearing, No romo, Oneshot, Set in the real world but not RPF, Work politics, company parties
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:52:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28036461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheNerdyTurtle96/pseuds/TheNerdyTurtle96
Summary: Christmas prompt: Cleo and Joe, sworn enemies, are chosen to prepare the company Christmas party.
Series: Claire's Christmas Oneshots [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2065737
Comments: 7
Kudos: 24





	Creating Unity By Being Petty

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Cleo and Joe, sworn enemies, are chosen to prepare the company Christmas party. 
> 
> For my Christmas oneshots, I found a list of prompts and I'm writing whatever ones I feel like whenever I feel like it. I have a few others done right now, but I am most definitely not committing to any kind of a schedule with these. 
> 
> Originally, I wasn’t totally sure what I wanted to do with this prompt. I was kind of thinking of making this into a lime before I actually sat down and thought “why would Cleo and Joe be sworn enemies?” Then, I mixed together work politics (something I would love to see in more AUs), pettiness, and an hour of free time where I really needed to stop a downwards-emotional spiral, which created this.

Cleo rhythmically tapped her mint-green nails on the tabletop as she glared at the person across from her. Having a staring contest wasn’t something she wanted to be spending her Monday afternoon doing, but it also wasn’t like she had anything better to do. Her colleagues in graphic design had happily taken over all of her work for the day, leaving her with no excuse to get out of this meeting. 

Normally, they attempted to get away with dumping as much work on Cleo as possible. However, this was a different set of circumstances. Christmas was coming, and Cub, the director of the museum where Cleo worked, wanted the company party to represent unity and peace. That meant attempting to get the graphic design and marketing departments to work together.

For years, even before Cleo had come to the company, the two departments had been in bitter disagreement about almost everything. Passive-aggressive emails were constantly sailing back and forth, small slights would turn into major rage-fests, and it was a miracle that they managed to get any of the advertising for the museum done at all. No one could really remember what had started the whole conflict. It was just normal to hate everyone in the other department.

However, Cub had been hired as the museum director from the outside earlier in the year, and he was thoroughly sick of the petty wars. At a company meeting, he had declared that the Christmas party would be planned by one member of graphic design and one member of marketing. Like a group of children playing nose goes, everyone else in the graphic design department had quickly declared themselves not it. It was just Cleo’s luck that she happened to be out with strep throat that day. 

When she got back to work, her colleagues were pleased to inform her that she was the chosen representative for the Christmas party planning committee. She had grumpily agreed, though on the condition that the rest of the team would have to do her work while she planned the party. That was a compromise they easily made.

So, here she was, sitting in a conference room across from some random guy with nerdy glasses from marketing, tasked with planning a peaceful Christmas party that promoted unity.  _ What a load of BS _ , she thought.

“Hello person who I have been ordered to plan a Christmas party with,” the marketing guy finally said.

“Hello person who I don’t want to be planning a Christmas party with,” she retorted.

“Do you have a shorter name?” was the sincere answer. Cleo seriously had to restrain herself from smiling at the remark.

“I’m Chelsea Reeves,” she curtly replied.

“Joseph Hills, pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“Seriously?” Cleo raised an eyebrow. “You’re happy to be hanging out with someone from graphic design?”

“Naturally, my senses would inform me to be deathly terrified of you. However, I have somehow convinced my gullible colleagues that they should complete my tasks related to marketing. Now, I have the afternoon agenda cleared, and I have nothing better to do than to make your acquaintance. Unless you would prefer to stare at each other in tense silence until we are given permission to leave.”

It took several moments for Cleo to process the wordy explanation, which she did spend staring at Joseph in tense silence. Once she finally understood, a smile wormed its way into her expression, and she chuckled perhaps a little louder than circumstances warranted.

“You are deathly terrified of  _ me? _ Why?”

“Well,” he began, dragging out the word in a light Southern accent, “you smiled when I implied that I may be terrified of you, you are able to maintain eye contact for scarily long lengths of time, and you are from graphic design. Need I add more?”

“No, not really.”

“So, what shall be on our agenda for the afternoon, assuming that you do not have any tasks to complete related to your work that you would rather chip away at than collaborate with someone from marketing?”

Once again, Cleo really couldn’t help grinning at this man’s peculiar way of wording.

“Well, I dumped all my work on my coworkers as revenge for making me do this, but I might be forced to admit that I’m enjoying this.”

“I could say the same,” Joseph answered.

A few more seconds of silence passed, Cleo’s jade eyes twinkling in the afternoon light. Then, she extended her hand across the table. 

“Call me Cleo,” she offered. 

“And if we shall be using abbreviated versions of our given names, then you may refer to me as Joe.”

Joe carefully gripped her palm, avoiding her sharp nails, and firmly shook. When he let go, Cleo quickly rolled her chair to his side of the table, as there was no need for awkward diplomatic professionalism now.

“Alright, so we have to plan a Christmas party, and the longer it takes, the less work we have to do. If we play our cards right, we could get out of almost all of our work until Christmas,” she reasoned. 

“As much as I enjoy my work, I can’t say that the opportunity to avoid my responsibilities for a little while isn’t appealing,” he responded, nodding thoughtfully.

“Now, Cub wants us to plan a party to promote peace and unity. How the hell are we going to do that?”

“Hmm.” Joe leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. “Currently, I see two options to unite everyone. We can make everyone happy or everyone miserable.”

“It’s far easier to make people miserable,” Cleo remarked.

“That statement is most definitely true.”

“And honestly, I wouldn’t mind being passive-aggressive to some of the people in my department. Like the one who never does anything except talk about her toy poodle, her gym membership, her rotating cast of boyfriends, and her latest diet.”

“Or the manager in my department who never approves ads by the proper deadlines, and thus has wasted thousands of dollars and countless hours of precious time,” Joe grumbled, the most negative Cleo had seen him the whole time.

“Well, we have the perfect opportunity to tick off everyone!” she concluded, snapping her fingers into finger guns.

“Morally, being petty is perhaps not the right choice to make, but it brings more short-term satisfaction,” Joe mused.

“Then let’s do it!” she cheered. 

In the span of ten minutes, she had pleasantly talked to, become friends with, and started an evil plot with someone from marketing. It truly was a Christmas miracle.


End file.
